‘What does that mean, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy.
‘I don’t think it takes us much further forward apart from finding this market for Irish ancestors in the United States. But if our thieves reply to the next round of advertisements with some of these stolen paintings, we’ll be home and dry. We’d just have to wait until somebody turned up with them under their arm, as it were, and then we could all go home.’
Powerscourt found Richard Butler half an hour later sitting in his study, the door closed, staring at the horses on his walls, a bottle of Bushmills and a crystal glass sitting on the little table to the side of his desk.
‘Powerscourt,’ he said, and his voice was the voice of a beaten man, ‘do you have any comfort for us all this morning?’
‘Well,’ Powerscourt replied, trying to sound more hopeful than he felt, ‘perhaps you’d be able to show me that letter you had from the thieves now, the blackmail letter.’
Butler shook his head. ‘Can’t do that,’ he said, the words slurring slightly, ‘especially now, can’t do it. Swore an oath, you see. To my father. Promised to keep all we had.’
‘Let me try again in a different way then. Was there a deadline in the letter, a date by which you had to do whatever it is you’re meant to do? I think there must have been a deadline.’
Butler nodded and poured himself a Johnny Fitzgerald sized slug of his whiskey. ‘Yes, there was, bloody deadline.’
‘Two more things then, if I may,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Whatever it was that they asked you to do, have you done it?’
Butler shook his head once more. ‘Haven’t done it. Couldn’t do it. Told you. Impossible.’
‘My other question then, has the deadline passed?’
‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Butler, ‘not yet.’
‘But it’s close now?’
‘Very close.’
‘How close is very close, Butler?’
‘Can’t tell you that either. Not safe.’
‘What do you mean, not safe? Have they threatened violence? Have they said they’ll take away some people rather than some pictures?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Can’t say, won’t say. Damn it, man, how am I supposed to find out what’s going on if I don’t know most of it?’
‘Sorry,’ said Butler, ‘can’t say.’
‘Let me tell you a couple of things which I can say at any rate. That picture that came yesterday is not the one that was taken all those weeks ago. It’s a copy. And, if you think about it, the thieves have got very cocky. I think they must have brought the artist into the town to look at the people and paint their faces unless Pronsias Mulcahy or one of the Delaneys is a dab hand with the paintbrush. He may have spent a couple of days here, staying perhaps in the best room in MacSwiggin’s Hotel and drinking in his bar with the locals. Word may leak out in the next few days. You know, Butler, how everybody in these Big Houses thinks the servants listen in to everything they say? Well, I think the boot’s on the other foot now. We must all listen in to whatever they’re saying whenever we can, without being too obvious about it. You never know what we might find out.’
‘I didn’t sleep last night, Powerscourt,’ said Butler, ‘didn’t sleep at all. Tell me, do you think that because Mulcahy and all those people appear in the painting, that means they are the ones behind it all?’
‘The same thought occurred to me,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘but I don’t think it does mean that. They may know everything that has gone on, some of those people down in the town, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they planned the whole thing.’
‘I suppose I’d better try to cheer everybody up,’ said Butler, locking his bottle of Bushmills away in a cupboard. ‘Can’t go hiding behind the whiskey bottle when times are hard. What would the ancestors have said about such behaviour?’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Tell me, how many of those great battles in Ireland’s past did you ancestors actually fight in?’
‘All of them,’ said Richard Butler, ‘every single one that mattered. God save Ireland.’
Only one person in Butler’s Court was grateful for the furore over the return of The Master of the Hunt. Johnpeter Kilross had discovered an empty cottage in a clearing in the woods about a mile from the main buildings. There was, he saw as he peered through the windows, a little sitting room, a kitchen, a tiny bathroom and a bedroom. The bedroom, oddly enough, was the only place that appeared to have clean windows. It was known as the Head Gardener’s Cottage and the Head Gardener had indeed lived there until he secured a position close to Dublin to be near his sick mother. The place had been empty ever since, as the new Head Gardener already had a tiny house of his own near the town. Nothing seemed to have been moved. Johnpeter had infiltrated his way with a stable lad into the room at the back of the scullery where all the keys were kept and had spotted two stout specimens hanging on a hook labelled Head Gardener’s Cottage. Under normal circumstances it was virtually impossible to get into this room alone and unspotted. Kitchen maids were forever bringing things in or taking things out to the scullery. But the curiosity aroused by The Master of the Hunt was so great that every single servant shot out into the hall or pretended to be busy in the gallery above on the first floor. Johnpeter had nipped down the back stairs and removed one of the keys. Now he and Alice would have a place where they could go in the afternoons. Or the mornings come to that. Johnpeter was certain he would be able to persuade her to join him there.
Powerscourt drove himself into Athlone early that afternoon. He had sent a cable to Inspector Harkness in Ormonde House requesting a meeting at three fifteen, the hour when the Westport-Dublin express was due to stop at Athlone. Harkness came striding down the platform, the briefcase with the enormous lock clutched firmly in his left hand.
‘Are you well, Lord Powerscourt? Good to see you again.’
They drove out into the countryside for a couple of minutes and set out to walk by the river. Powerscourt told him about the return of the painting and its dramatic impact on the inhabitants of Butler’s Court.
‘Now then,’ said the Ulsterman, ‘you said you might have a wee bit of a plan to catch the thieves, Lord Powerscourt?’
‘I do, and I would be grateful for your opinion of it. It depends on the list of houses Dennis Ormonde drew up for the Orangemen to guard. You remember the list, Inspector?’
‘I do indeed,’ said Harkness, patting his briefcase. ‘Sure I have two copies of the thing in here.’
‘And you will no doubt recall,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that there is a line drawn across the list. Underneath that line Dennis Ormonde does not have enough Orangemen to guard the houses and the houses do not have many old portraits anyway. Now then, I fully understand your reluctance to tell me the names of your informants, but do you have anybody close to the thieves, somebody who could be used to send them information?’
‘I’m not altogether sure what you’re driving at, Lord Powerscourt, but yes, it’s only a guess, but I do believe there are a couple of lads out there we know about who may move in the same circle as the people who may have stolen the pictures. There’s two in particular I’m thinking of who have fathers and uncles in prison. The promises of early release can work wonders.’